


Right Here, Right Now

by ChocoholicFangirl



Series: What Is Love (Single Dads AU) [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:52:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6820006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoholicFangirl/pseuds/ChocoholicFangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set a little bit before Take Your Time</p><p>
  <em>Keiji scrambles for something to say, settles on: “Shouldn’t you be picking up your son?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bokuto’s face goes blank. “I already did—wait—” He looks down, turns to look behind him, spins three times as though he will see something different if he tries hard enough. “Shouyou?” he calls.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Keiji scans the area. No sight of Shouyou.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Bokuto’s eyes are so wide Keiji sees more white than gold. “Oh my God.”</em>
</p><p>(Alternate Title: Routine is Your Friend)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right Here, Right Now

**Author's Note:**

> Hnnnngh this is for Kira but I feel like it turned out not what I originally planned for? But I promised and here it is and I swear I swear the next one will take less than five months probably
> 
> This is basically a result of my roommate saying "okay but Akaashi in a police uniform" and me going "you right" and I'm so sorry

Keiji frowns at his watch.

Bokuto isn’t exactly what he calls predictable, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise, but Keiji admits that he has gotten used to seeing Bokuto, has maybe even started looking forward to it, seeing his smile and hearing his laugh and listening to him and his son talking over each other about everything and nothing.

There is no reason for Keiji to wait for Bokuto to catch up, but he does anyway. And Bokuto doesn’t disappoint.

“Akaashi!”

He watches Bokuto bound towards him, bumping into innocent passerby at the speed of a train, his hair fluttering in the wind (so it isn’t hair gel, then? How does it stay upright? What is this sorcery?), arms outstretched as though they were reuniting lovers or something sappy like that that Konoha would probably snort under his breath if he were here. He’s holding a bouquet in one hand; the flowers are rapidly losing petals. Pedestrians who have witnessed this scene before quickly duck out of the way.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto might have thrown his arms around him, but Keiji steps out of the way just in time. “It’s so good to see you!”

Keiji lets out a half-sigh, thinks about how Bokuto says it every time as though it’s a surprise, as though they haven’t come to expect each other on this particular street corner every day. “Good afternoon, Bokuto-san.”

“You look great today!” Bokuto continues without pausing for breath; Keiji is reminded of the train imagery. “Not that you don’t always look great—I mean, you always wear the same uniform, but—you look awesome everyday, so I should tell you that every day!”

And it’s things like this—Bokuto’s genuine praise, his unabashed enthusiasm—that catches Keiji off guard every time. He scrambles for something to say, settles on: “Shouldn’t you be picking up your son?”

Bokuto’s face goes blank. “I already did—wait—” He looks down, turns to look behind him, spins three times as though he will see something different if he tries hard enough. “Shouyou?” he calls.

Keiji scans the area. No sight of Shouyou.

Bokuto’s eyes are so wide Keiji sees more white than gold. “Oh my God.”

 

* * *

 

Keiji calls Konoha and tells him to keep an eye out for a hyperactive orange-haired boy while Bokuto continues whirling in circles and shouting for Shouyou.

“Again?” Konoha asks, with barely concealed laughter.

“This is not a joke, Konoha-san,” Keiji snaps.

“Of course, of course,” Konoha says, unapologetic. “Komi and I will look around the kindergarten. You and your boyfriend can retrace his steps.”

Keiji considers saying that Bokuto isn’t his boyfriend, thinks better of it. There isn’t any time to waste. He hangs up without another word and turns to see Bokuto trying to pull his hair out. “Bokuto-san, please calm down.”

“I lost my son!” Bokuto shouts, ignoring Keiji. It’s Tokyo, so few people even glance this way, but Keiji still tries his best to lower Bokuto’s volume. “I _lost_ my _son_! I’m the worst father ever!”

“He will be fine,” Keiji says firmly, guiding Bokuto back down the way he came.

“What if he got kidnapped?” Bokuto grabs Keiji’s shoulders. His hair—surely this must be Keiji’s imagination—seems to be even more outrageously spiky than before. “What if someone took him or a car ran him over and I didn’t notice because _I’m the worst_ —”

“Then we should hurry.” Keiji lets Bokuto take his time, rubs Bokuto’s back until Bokuto’s breathing is even. This might not be the safest area, but people know Bokuto and Shouyou well enough that certainly someone would notice if something is seriously amiss. Routine is your friend. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. We _will_ find him. Let’s start with calling Iwaizumi-san.”

Bokuto sniffs (is he _crying_?). “What would I do without you, Akaashi?”

Maybe you would stay focused and hold on to your child, Keiji thinks. Out loud he says, “Find a different policeman.”

 

* * *

 

“And I remember that Shouyou was still with me here,” Bokuto says, pointing at the flower shop, where a teenager with badly dyed hair was either dozing on the counter or hiding behind it. “Because that’s where I got this—” another vigorous shake of the bouquet; a stem snaps loudly “—and Shouyou helped me pick it out.”

“Right,” Keiji says. “So we should ask—”

“And before that we saw that cat!” Bokuto bounds forward, bending down to stroke a cat napping in a patch of sunlight on the steps. The cat is clearly used to the treatment, even arches into his touch. “Shouyou loves cats! We always stop here when we’re walking.” He looks up, beaming at Keiji, for a moment perfectly happy and content in the memory.

Keiji can still remember the first time he met Bokuto. He’d found Shouyou crossing the street by himself, had hurried forward to grab him; Shouyou had declared, without a hint of fear or panic, that he was looking for his father, and then launched into a long-winded explanation of their separation that more or less boiled down to “I saw a bird and followed it.” Shouyou is the kind of kid who talked with his hands, whose voice travelled even when he was trying to whisper, and when Keiji saw Bokuto at a distance, hands in the air and hair standing straight up, he had thought _That has to be the father_ even before Shouyou started shouting.

It might have been the brilliant hair, it might have been the loudness, or it might have been the eyes, the single-minded intensity.

Keiji steps up to the shop the cat is lounging in front of. “Ukai-san,” he calls, towards the counter, where Ukai, the owner’s grandson, is smoking and reading a magazine and trying to ignore Takeda. “Have you seen Shouyou?”

Ukai looks up and around Takeda. “The orange kid?” He frowns. “He’s not with his angry friend?”

Keiji sighs to himself. Iwaizumi had been vaguely exasperated over the phone, saying that no, Shouyou wasn’t with Tobio, Tobio was at home and eating his snack and now very concerned. “Bokuto-san last saw him around here. Takeda-san, have you seen him?”

Ukai and Takeda both shake their heads. “He hasn’t been in here,” Ukai says, finally giving up the pretence of not noticing Takeda. “Right, sensei?”

Bokuto lets out a frustrated yell as Keiji leads him away.

 

* * *

 

After interrogating the bartender across the street from Ukai’s shop, the sleepy-eyed teenager working at the coffee place, the man who runs the bakery on the street corner where Keiji meets Bokuto—all of whom knew Shouyou by name—they finally run into a brown-haired teenager walking his dog who pointed them back in the direction of the kindergarten, saying something about “excited yelling that’s probably him.”

The boy gives Bokuto a tight-lipped smile, something that borders on pity and contempt, so soft that he might not even have meant it. Bokuto spins away without seeing it, but Keiji halts, suddenly determined to catch the boy’s arm, to pull him back and explain, to make sure the boy understands. Keiji knows what it looks like, knows what people say, a parent who loses track of his child so often the entire street knows them, and he knows that it’s irrational to want to defend Bokuto to a stranger whose opinion doesn’t matter. But Keiji cannot bear the thought of someone having the wrong idea about Bokuto, cannot stand the notion that there are people who don’t know how good a father Bokuto is, how much Shouyou adores and looks up to him.

“Let’s look down this alley,” Bokuto decides.

Keiji remembers the first time Bokuto came running up to the street corner, grabbing Keiji’s sleeve and babbling something about his son, a birthday cake, talking to his friend, and so on and so on. His face lit up when he talked about how excited Shouyou had been for his playdate with Tobio, how it had been just _killing_ Bokuto not to tell Shouyou everything about the presents. Keiji had to steer Bokuto back towards finding his son, who couldn’t wait for his own birthday cake and had set off trying to reach Tobio’s apartment by himself.

Surely, surely it’s obvious to everyone that Bokuto loves his son, and if he sometimes slips up or takes his eyes off Shouyou for two minutes, it’s only because he knows that everyone else in this neighborhood loves Shouyou just as much and would look after him.

“No luck,” Bokuto sighs when they emerge from the other end of the alley.

Keiji is now holding the bouquet, half out of concern for the flowers, half because Bokuto has to take pictures of every bird and cat and dog they come across _just in case Shouyou hasn’t met them_. “Let’s go back the way you came,” Keiji says. “We’ll check the other side of Ukai’s shop.”

 

* * *

 

“Matsukawa!” Bokuto calls to the kindergarten teacher closing up the place. “Have you seen Shouyou?”

Matsukawa turns after he’s locked up the gate. “Not since you picked him up,” he says, calm and sleepy and not at all like someone who has to chase after toddlers for a living. “Have you checked with Iwaizumi?”

“Yeah, he said Shouyou’s not there.” Bokuto groans, running his fingers through his hair. Keiji is amazed, every time, that it bounces back up so easily. “Where is he? I’m so worried! I’m pretty sure we’ve asked everyone! Right, Akaashi?”

Bokuto pauses, turns to look at Keiji. “Right, Akaashi?”

“Oh.” Keiji blinks, realizes he’s been staring at Bokuto’s face, his jaw his eyes his neck his cheekbones— “Right. Yes, I think so. Matsukawa-san, can you think of any places he might be that’s not on this street?”

Matsukawa shakes his head slowly. “I really don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ll ask around.” He looks at Keiji then, with an undecipherable expression.

Keiji almost ducks his head; he can’t help but wonder if Matsukawa had caught the way Keiji was looking at Bokuto. By this point it’s hardly a secret, Keiji is sure even Bokuto knows, but it still makes him balk a little, that this random man Keiji met by chance is somehow destroying Keiji’s ability to do his job. Keiji thinks about the times when Shouyou _isn’t_ missing, when the three of them just walk for the brief stretch where Keiji’s patrol route overlaps with Bokuto’s way home, all the times Keiji almost trips because he’s absolutely fascinated by Bokuto’s hair, Bokuto’s smile, the way Bokuto carries himself so effortlessly.

Keiji doesn’t know Bokuto’s given name, or his job, or where Shouyou’s mother is and why she never picks Shouyou up. He is simply—he gags a little on the inside; Konoha would have a field day with this—completely hypnotized by Bokuto.

“Kuroo?” Bokuto says, blinking at his vibrating phone in surprise. After a moment he picks it up. “Yeah?” His entire face brightens, and Keiji is suddenly seized with an uncontrollable desire to freeze time right here, right now, forever. “He is?”

 

* * *

 

They’re back at the flower shop, and Keiji now feels like a complete idiot for forgetting to check inside and ask the kid—Kenma, whom Keiji just met officially. Apparently Shouyou has been behind the counter this entire time, watching Kenma play one of his video games, and Kuroo, the owner of the flower shop, is obviously trying very hard not to grin.

“I was so worried!” Bokuto squeezes Shouyou, half laughing half crying, while Shouyou squeals breathlessly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Akaashi-kun, look on the bright side,” Komi says over the phone (which he had taken from Konoha, who is apparently dying from laughter). “You got to spend some time with Bokuto-san, right?”

“I left the shop for like half an hour to pick up some groceries and I miss everything,” Kuroo says, shaking his head tragically. Keiji is starting to wonder how many people on this street Bokuto is close friends with.

“Akaashi,” Konoha gasps, having apparently wrestled the phone back. “Tell him to just take you to dinner next time.”

“Kenma’s game is so cool!” Shouyou makes a huge gesture that almost propels him out of Bokuto’s arms. “There are monsters and zombies and BOOM—”

Keiji sighs and hangs up on Konoha, who is still wheezing. He is so tired and he just wants to go back to his routine, the one where he isn’t stupid and smitten and stupidly smitten. “Bokuto-san, I should be getting back to work.” After a moment he adds, “Here’s your bouquet.”

For a moment there was silence. Kuroo’s eyebrows shot up. Then Shouyou turns to Bokuto. “You didn’t ask?”

Bokuto’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“Why don’t you leave Shouyou with Kenma for now,” Kuroo suggests (Kenma’s head jerks up, his face a picture of abject fear). “I’ll take him to the potluck. You can walk home and get your food.”

“Take the flowers back,” Shouyou whispers. “You have to do it properly.”

 

* * *

 

They walk in complete silence to the intersection where they usually part ways. Bokuto is looking up, down, left, right, anywhere but Keiji, and by now Keiji has a pretty good idea of what’s happening.

“Do you want the flowers back?” he asks.

Bokuto shakes his head. Keiji waits. There is a moment of stalemate, and then Bokuto takes a deep breath, like he’s about to jump into a pool.

“Kuroo told me to do it!” Bokuto almost shouts. Once he starts, it seems like there’s no way to stop him. “He—Daichi—Matsukawa—all of us, we have a potluck every Friday, a lot of us are single fathers so we help each other out and—I know it’s really short notice, but we have one tonight—Kuroo says I should bring you, because I talk about how awesome and cool you are and they want to meet you, except they probably already have—” He buries his face in his hands. “This is terrible. I practiced, I was practicing—”

Bokuto peeks through his fingers at Keiji, and Keiji has to smile. “Bokuto-san,” he says, gently. “This is where you were supposed to give me the flowers.”

Bokuto’s hands fall away, and Keiji gets to witness his biggest smile yet. “Is that a yes? Are you saying yes?”

Keiji is already nodding, but Bokuto insists they go through the whole thing again, with the flowers and the actual question, and then Bokuto almost ran back to Kuroo without giving Keiji the time and address, and then they finally exchange numbers like Konoha has been _begging_ Keiji to do.

“One more thing,” Keiji says, just before Bokuto finally turns away. “Bokuto-san, can you tell me your whole name?”

Bokuto’s eyes are shining; he has been smiling for about five minutes straight. He thumps his chest. “I’m Bokuto Koutarou! I’m a vet, I work two streets down.”

Koutarou. Keiji smiles, waves as Bokuto darts across the street. Konoha, who has always had an uncanny sense for dramatic timing, rounds the corner with Komi, and they flank Keiji in the least subtle way possible.

“So was I right about the dinner?” Konoha asks. Keiji wants to punch the smirk off his face, but that was hardly anything new.

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Alternate Title: HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON
> 
> For some reason I am a very productive writer when finals hit? God help my GPA
> 
> (Feel free to come [scream at me](http://www.chocoholicfangirl.tumblr.com) on my tumblr, I promise I don't bite)


End file.
